Visibility Siting Requirements Human Factors Analyses

Objective: Two human performance metrics, Object Discrimination Analysis and Object
Discrimination and Line of Sight (LOS) Angle of Incidence, were used to assess the impact
of tower height on air traffic control tower specialist distance perception.

Technical Approach: the tower visibility analysis tool (http://www.hf.faa.gov/visibility)

was used to assess the human performance metrics1.

Air Traffic Control Tower: TWR COBIJA

Light Level: Clear Day
Ground Turbulence: Medium
Target Object: Cessna 172, target orientation: Front View
Observer Eye Height: 76
Vertical Elevation Change Between Observer and Key Point (feet): 43
Ground Elevation at Tower (MSL): 771
Ground Elevation at Key Point (MSL): 804
Tower to Key Point Distance: 3094 (feet) 0.94 (km)
Visibility Range: 10(Miles) 16.09 (km)

1. Object Discrimination Analysis Results

Criteria Threshold Tower Results Pass/Fail

probability(detection) 95.5% 100.0% Pass
probability(recognition) 11.5% 99.8% Pass

2. Line of Sight (LOS) Angle of Incidence

Threshold Tower Results Pass/Fail

0.8 degrees or 48 minutes .80 degrees Pass

1
Krebs, Hewitt, Murrill, and Driggers, 2005. How High is High Enough? Quantifying the Impact of Air
Traffic Control Tower Observation Height on Distance Perception, International Symposium on Aviation
Psychology, 1-5.